Rooting your Android phone

[JamesMike]

In reading the article they show the benefits and the risks. Has anyone experience with this, and how were the results?

http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/how-to-root-android/

 

[bkends35]

All three of my android phones I've owned were rooted. If you don't know what you're doing, it is possible to brick it, but it's not that likely. Definitely read a ton before you consider it. At first, I just removed all the dumb carrier bloatware and manufacturer bloatware but then I got into flashing custom roms to get as close as possible to stock android. They usually weren't that stable compared to the OEM rom so I really wouldn't recommend it on a daily driver to be honest. It was fun while it lasted but then after I started college I didn't have enough time to mess around with my phone like I used to so I stopped rooting and messing with my phones in favor or stability.

 

[JamesMike]

All three of my android phones I've owned were rooted. If you don't know what you're doing, it is possible to brick it, but it's not that likely. Definitely read a ton before you consider it. At first, I just removed all the dumb carrier bloatware and manufacturer bloatware but then I got into flashing custom roms to get as close as possible to stock android. They usually weren't that stable compared to the OEM rom so I really wouldn't recommend it on a daily driver to be honest. It was fun while it lasted but then after I started college I didn't have enough time to mess around with my phone like I used to so I stopped rooting and messing with my phones in favor or stability.

Thank you for the information. Food for thought.

 

[Lloydbm41]

In reading the article they show the benefits and the risks. Has anyone experience with this, and how were the results?

http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/how-to-root-android/

I used to root and ROM my phones all the time, especially in 2011-2013 when Android was a clusterf*#$ of a UI and ROM's were generally better coded to meet specific hardware. This is no longer the case. Android has come a long way and when you look at a Moto X, Nexus, HTC One, LG G3... you can see it.

I buy Nexus devices or something like the Moto X that sticks as close to vanilla Android as possible. However, for someone that may be coming from iOS and all of a sudden have the freedom to customize the crap out of your phone... these people may find it fun to root/ROM for a while. Eventually though, it does become tiresome and you return to just leaving it all stock.

 

[Sevanw]

Rooting to install custom Roms is a thing of the past for me. I had my run with rooting to install Xposed modules, but even that is of no interest to me. I like stock TW with Nova Prime and icon packs. I'm happy with this set up.
There are a lot of custom Roms that just don't have the same battery life or stability as your stock rom. So if you root, try Xposed modules first. One module I miss is YouTube adaway.

 

[LIVEFRMNYC]

I root every phone I get. I mainly root for added functionality. My Note 4 is rooted for reasons like, auto recording calls, making certain apps believe it's on Wifi, getting rid of the volume safety warning, BootManger, faking location, and plenty of other miscellaneous things that make my device better for me.

Performance/speed is the same as not rooted. I also pretty much quit dealing with custom roms on my main device. With my older phones, I play with custom roms often since I don't use them.

 

[gotluck]

My device is rooted with stock rom. I'd rather not have to custom rom, but have done it on an hp touchpad. I will probably install xposed, YouTube adaway, when it gets past alpha on lollipop, but haven't used it before.

I enjoy adaway, greenify , and a few other utilities.

 

[mrex]

maybe it should be said, but with android you already have lots of things to do and modify without rooting. article says that rooting is the same as jailbreaking. yes and no, without JB you just have a pale ios - nothing else. Without rooting your android, you can already do alot. Most people dont need the root access at all. there is some functions that need rooting... like xposed etc.

 

[SurferMan]

Been rooting and rom'ing for years. You'd literally have to do something on purpose to brick, chances of something going wrong are beyond slim but devs will put all the warnings there. Phones/tabs just always run better, actually removing bloat, tweaking the OS, better battery life (depends on rom) awesome features implemented etc. I've been running Dynamic Kat rom on my S5 since last summer, not one hiccup.

 

[Savor]

I actually was almost forced to have my phone rooted since MIUI 6 was unstable but not as bad as v5 which had random freezes and reboots. Rooting and installing a custom ROM actually made it more stable for me. With stock MIUI, I would have 100-200 mb less available RAM and almost every other day had to reboot it to clear the cache.

Stock/unrooted Android is good enough for me though. I was going to jailbreak my iPhone 5 yesterday only to realize I was on 8.1.3 which can't be jailbroken or downgraded anymore! So I might swap with my brother's slate iPhone 5 which has double storage (32 gb) but more dings, scuffs and far degraded battery (3 hr SOT). His is still on 8.1.2. I will jailbreak it just to match some of the customization apps from Cydia that you can get from stock/unrooted Android and sell it off after a couple weeks. I saw some of the iOS apps and i can match the majority of it compared to Android like gesture swipes.

Still, I have nothing against rooting. I thought I bricked mines only that I had to clear everything in partition and whatnot and it is easier for me to go to recovery mode (volume up + power) than on iOS' DFU mode. MIUI community and forums really do support flashing custom ROMs. Greenify works much better when rooted. AdBlock Plus is required for it. Same with WakeLock Detector which was broken after KitKat. I don't use Titanium Backup though but I read Tasker is a great app for rooted devices.

The benefits of rooting an Android is not as beneficial to me as jailbreaking iOS. A jailbroken iPhone can match most of the benefits of unrooted Android. Rooting Android is not necessary for me unless to try out some useful apps I can live without. I got late in the game but I still prefer rooted though. If unrooted Android gave me 90% of my needs then rooted gives me 100%. Might as well have it as its max potential. With iOS - unrooted is like 70% covering my needs, but rooted is like 85%.

 

[thering1975]

Like the others the first thing i do is root the phone.

As a dev on XDA i never saw anyone brick or have issues with any of the roms i created purely because i ensured people read the instructions then re-read them.

People who just go ahead and flash without reading are asking for trouble, however i feel rooting to install custom roms on new phones now is not worth it. Back in the day it was done to slim down and gain a lot of features but as android progressed those features became part of stock roms anyways.

But rooting for me is a definate requirement for the following reasons

• Stretching out the life of your phone, i have a galaxy mega which came with JB and finished with KK, i love this phone even though spec wise it does not match any modern phone, but im running a cracking build of loliipop and it has never run so good
• XPOSED Framework, this cracking framework and modules literally killed the requirement for custom stock roms, and essential android tool no user shoukd be with out
• Low Level Tweaks, i create ammended low level driver settings for the audio chipset. This removes the eu requirement for headphone level protection etc and really allows headphones to sho their full potential, and go seriously loud. Unlike app tweaks this does so without introducing artefacts
• TASKER - although this app workd fine without root, alot of the more complex features and plugins require root access, again no one should be without tasker

The benfits far outweigh the possibility of any issues in my view

 

[0dev]

I don't think I've ever owned an Android phone I didn't root. This is probably largely because I have never owned a Nexus so the phones I've owned have shipped with third party UIs and bloatware. So I flash a ROM based on vanilla Android.

As well as Android as Lord Google intended it I also like having AdAway and Greenify on my phone, both of which need root to work properly. Technically Greenify can work without root but not very well, last I checked it just guided you to close apps manually.

Whenever I use iOS that's the only thing that really gets to me, not even the lack of customisation but the fact there are ads on everything and blocking them via the hostfiles is a lot more difficult.

 

[JackieInCo]

I rooted my Note 4 and Note Edge only so that I could block ads with Adaway in apps and in my broswers. That alone is worth it to me.

The only negative was that it instantly voided the warranty.

 

[AustinIllini]

In my android history, I read extensively and often looked to youtube for how-tos if possible.

YMMV, but I wouldn't worry a ton about bricking the phone.